Smart Growth America

Smart Growth America
Smart Growth America advocates for people who want to live and work in great neighborhoods. We believe smart growth solutions support businesses and jobs, provide more options for how people get around and make it more affordable to live near work and the grocery store. Our coalition works with communities to fight sprawl and save money. We are making America’s neighborhoods great together.

National Complete Streets Coalition
Complete Streets are streets for everyone. They are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities. Complete Streets make it easy to cross the street, walk to shops, and bicycle to work.

Discuss useful measures for common Complete Streets goals of access, economy, environment, equity, place, public health, and safety, and the metrics that a jurisdiction may use.

Offer a few tips for using those measures to tell the story of a project once it is completed.

Share further resources for those ready to dive deeper into the why and how of performance measurement for Complete Streets.

Evaluating Complete Streets Projects: A guide for practitionersNew strategies for transportation require new measurements of success. Over the last decade, the National Complete Streets Coalition has promoted the use of performance measures that reflect multimodal needs and that are relevant to all individuals using the system. Evaluating Complete Streets Projects: A guide for practitioners is an introduction to this approach.

Safer Streets, Stronger EconomiesWhat do communities get for their investments in Complete Streets? In this study of 37 projects, Smart Growth America found that Complete Streets projects tended to improve safety for everyone, increased biking and walking, and showed a mix of increases and decreases in automobile traffic, depending in part on the project goal. Compared to conventional transportation projects, these projects were remarkably affordable, and were an inexpensive way to achieve transportation goals. In terms of economic returns, the limited data available suggests Complete Streets projects were related to broader economic gains like increased employment and higher property values.

Amazing Place: Six Cities Using the New Recipe for Economic Development
This new resource looks at how six cities are using smart growth and placemaking strategies to gain a competitive edge. Our case study examples — Boise, ID; Denver, CO; Greenville, SC; Minneapolis, MN; Nashville, TN; and Pittsburgh, PA—represent a diversity of geographies, locations, population sizes, industries, and development challenges. Despite their differences, all of these cities are using smart growth development to successfully attract new companies and new residents.

Key Partnership

The American Planning Association’s Planning and Community Health Center has partnered with the American Public Health Association at the national level. This key partnership ensures that the conversations, lessons learned, and experiences of towns and cities across the country are part of the national agenda to prevent chronic diseases.